Hybrid Bicycles - Converted my GT Avalanche into a hybrid yesterday... what a difference!

Long story short, bought a mountain bike because I thought I wanted to ride dirt, and liked the looks of them. In the last 3 years, I have found myself only urban mountain biking and riding paved bike paths.
Yesterday about dropped the hammer and bought a Trek 7.2 FX. Decided after talking to the shop owner to try new tires and bars on my current bike first, which is a late 90's GT Avalanche.
I changed out the tires to some Kenda City Slicker 26x1.5 and replaced the flat bar with a Giant 1.5" rise bar and some new grips. Removed the bar ends.

Bike is now even lighter, and more comfortable to ride. Rolling resistance is cut down bigtime, and no more annoying hum from the tires. Only downside now I can think of is the ride is worse when hitting cracks, etc. May just be a wuss or may have to add a suspension seat post to better cope with it. I have a lightweight race style saddle on my bike now. Not really thinking it needs to be replaced, just think my rear end needs to adjust to the discomfort.

Now to change the tires on the GF's Trek 3700 WSD next...

:thumb:

I want to convert my Trek 3700 to a hybrid, but I want to do some offroad first lol.

Welcome to the Mtn Bike to Hybrid club!
Running Nimbus 26x1.5's myself and they are a DREAM!
ParkPre Hammer with a Tange fork, Schwinn riser headset and bars, loving it :)

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/8923/cimg0109.jpg

Rather than a suspension seat post you could switch to fast but wide slicks - 2.0 to 2.3" Big Apples for the road, or 2" Duremes for road and off road.

Too bad you didn't think of that before you bought the new bike! Now that you have the Trek, it seems like leaving the GT as a mountain bike might give you a wider range of use in your fleet.

Congrats on the new bike(s)!! It's always good to have more than one. Three is a good number of bikes to have ready to ride, and maybe two or three projects. The two I have up and running are like yours, a fast hybrid and a MTB with 1.5 street treads. I'm hoping to put the knobbies back on the hardtail when I get another hybrid set up as my daily driver. The fast hybrid is a bit delicate to pull my cart. My old hybridized MTB, recently deceased.
http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr147/Rod_Smith/IMG_2270.jpg

Welcome to the Mtn Bike to Hybrid club!
Running Nimbus 26x1.5's myself and they are a DREAM!
ParkPre Hammer with a Tange fork, Schwinn riser headset and bars, loving it :)[/IMG]

Looks fast! :thumb:

Rather than a suspension seat post you could switch to fast but wide slicks - 2.0 to 2.3" Big Apples for the road, or 2" Duremes for road and off road.

Or stand up when riding over breaks in the pavement.

I want to convert my Trek 3700 to a hybrid, but I want to do some offroad first lol.

I wanted to use the knobbies off-road but...

I cracked a rib the day after I bought my mountain bike so I changed the tires to 1.5 Nimbus shortly after that happened. It hurt too much to ride off road. Riding on the road did not hurt at all, so I didn't take any days off.

Rather than a suspension seat post you could switch to fast but wide slicks - 2.0 to 2.3" Big Apples for the road, or 2" Duremes for road and off road.

I agree, never liked suspension seatposts. Big fat tires really soften the ride on most bikes.

2.3 inch tires for pavement? Haha, that's funny! I actually used street tires that wide for a couple of weeks because they looked cool. I wasn't man enough though, they beat me up. I gave them away.

Bike is now even lighter, and more comfortable to ride. Rolling resistance is cut down bigtime, and no more annoying hum from the tires.


on a scale of 1 to 10 how much was rolling resistance cut down? i'm about to do the same thing to my diamond back outlook and was curious how much easier it is riding on road tires vs. knobbies.

on a scale of 1 to 10 how much was rolling resistance cut down? i'm about to do the same thing to my diamond back outlook and was curious how much easier it is riding on road tires vs. knobbies.

This was addressed extensively on another thread, but ... (hey, it's fun to contribute!) the difference really is 'night and day'. Background: I've been riding seriously now going on nine years; started and stayed on 'roadified' hardtail mtbs exclusively until spring last year (bought a Sirrus), averaging 6 to 7000 kms/year (mostly paved surfaces, some lightish off-road), including many 'long distance' rides.
I do use good tires (Panaracer, Schwalbe, Vittoria), but the difference in rolling resistance and handling on-road (relative to knobblies) is huge -- a sluggish beast becomes a very quick/quick-handling 'street bike.' You will notice the difference.
'

Long story short, bought a mountain bike because I thought I wanted to ride dirt, and liked the looks of them. In the last 3 years, I have found myself only urban mountain biking and riding paved bike paths.
Yesterday about dropped the hammer and bought a Trek 7.2 FX. Decided after talking to the shop owner to try new tires and bars on my current bike first, which is a late 90's GT Avalanche.
I changed out the tires to some Kenda City Slicker 26x1.5 and replaced the flat bar with a Giant 1.5" rise bar and some new grips. Removed the bar ends.

Bike is now even lighter, and more comfortable to ride. Rolling resistance is cut down bigtime, and no more annoying hum from the tires. Only downside now I can think of is the ride is worse when hitting cracks, etc. May just be a wuss or may have to add a suspension seat post to better cope with it. I have a lightweight race style saddle on my bike now. Not really thinking it needs to be replaced, just think my rear end needs to adjust to the discomfort.

Now to change the tires on the GF's Trek 3700 WSD next...

:thumb:
If that shop owner either put the idea in your head to make the changes or supported your decision (even though in doing so possibly meant losing the sale of a bike)- do as much business with them as possible! Not too many shops would have suggested going the cheap route knowing they could lose a sale...